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RUSSIAN COURT BANS BIBLE TRANSLATION!

On August 17, 2017, the Vyborg City Court in Russia ruled to ban the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT), a Bible published by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russia’s Law on Counteracting Extremist Activity, signed by President Putin himself in November 2015, explicitly prohibits declaring sacred texts, such as the Bible, to be extremist. In an unconscionable move to circumvent the law, the court relied on a so-called expert study alleging that the NWT is not a Bible, opening the way for it to be banned.

The Russian-language New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures

Commenting on the ruling shortly after it was issued, David A. Semonian, international spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses at their world headquarters in New York, states: “It’s impossible to comprehend how a court can justify the decision to ban the Bible. It’s absurd that a court would outlaw the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, a Bible respected by scholars around the world, which has not only been distributed in hundreds of millions of copies but also has been translated into over 150 languages. Just how far will Russia’s resistance to religious freedom go? We certainly hope that respect for sacred texts will prevail when we pursue this case on appeal.”

God is the biggest hoax of all times! The relationship people have with the real world has changed. Throughout time, individuals have tried to escape the reality of life, through religion, drugs, or alcohol. Today, modern technologies allow a genuine democratization of the unreal. Everyone can live in a parallel world consisting of gods, prophets, avatars, churches, video games, augmented reality, or sitcoms. Each can lead an alternative life by proxy.

Atheism is the smart zeitgeist. Today we know very well we are just a sort of apes, all religions are wrong, there is no God, there is no afterlife, and all miracles are hoaxes. God is the most unpleasant character in all fiction! But many people refuse to accept reality that when they die that will be the very end of them, that they will cease to exist. Hoi polloi live on wishful thinking that they will live forever near God in another life! Hitler used to say that hoi polloi believe big lies, not small lies!

All religions are big lies. Basic to religion is a presumed distinction between humans and animals, and a presumed uniqueness of humans in the universe. Based on evolutionary biology and astronomy, science rejects this stupid distinction. God is imaginary and religion is a complete illusion. Belief in God is nothing but a silly superstition, which leads a significant portion of the population to be delusional.

Bible and Qur’an express toleration for slavery and regard women as subordinate to men. Religious morality is impoverished to the point of bankruptcy.If we rely on religion, there is a certainty we will fail. Religion has nothing to offer but taboos without a clue.

The level of socio-pathology caused by a religious meme or meme complex depends, at least in part, on the degree to which it leverages compulsion as part of its reproductive strategy. Religious compulsion might refer to the level of threat and fear a religion uses to win and keep converts, or the degree of obsessive thought and compulsive behavior it engenders in believers. But compulsion is likely to be just one part of the picture, because the experience of many religious believers is that they practice their faith freely and happily, even when this may seem dubious to outsiders.

Russia is a modern-day theocracy based on a bizarre ideology that combines democracy, corruption, nostalgia for the past, ultra-nationalism, and xenophobia. This ideology is driven and officially promoted by a wealthy, powerful, and well-organized religious establishment that dominates Russia’s political life.

The religious establishment in Russia is the Russian Orthodox Church, which is strongly supportive of President Vladimir Putin. The Church’s leader, Patriarch Kirill (Cyril), even calls Putin’s rule a miracle. For his part, Putin returned all the land stolen from the Church by the communists during the Soviet era. That makes the Church Russia’s largest land owner and gives it access to untold billions of euros’ worth of mineral rights.

Putin, even though he is gay, has also implemented some oppressive measures designed to put Russian law into line with the Church. There was the notorious anti-homosexual propaganda law, which bans any media that shows gays as normal human beings in Russia for example. The church strongly supports that move.

Communist rule was a catastrophe for Russia. Civil society was effectively destroyed in a brutal process designed to create a scientific utopia. Most of the basic institutions of society, including the schools, the courts, the law, the military, the police, science, the arts, the press, and even the family, were turned into instruments of coercion designed to force Communist values upon the average Russia. Those institutions that did not fit into the Communist fantasy, such as the Church and the free market, were brutally and violently suppressed.

The Church was basically the only fundamental institution of Russian society that managed to maintain its traditional identity during the Soviet era. It was also one of the few institutions that was not corrupted by the Communist Party, which gives it an incredible level of credibility. Communist persecution of the Church enhanced its reputation and appeal to the common people.

The situation in Russia today is becoming more like Iran as the remains of the Soviet military and security forces turn to the Church for support. Putin, the former KGB agent, and the generals—heirs to men who murdered millions of Russians at Lenin and Stalin’s orders—need the moral authority of the Church to stay in power.

Russia, like Iran, is now afflicted by an unholy alliance of authoritarian government and authoritarian religion. As in Iran, the so-called elected leaders serve increasingly at the pleasure of the religious leaders and serve as their errand boys.

That should concern us because the Russian Orthodox Church is increasingly Anti-Western and anti-modern. Patriarch Kirill even made this statement on Russian television in 2012: “Liberalism will lead to legal collapse and then the apocalypse.”

The Church has decided that the modern world is Satanic and wants Russia separated from it, much as Ayatollah Khomeini and his ilk wanted Iran separated from the modern world. An increasingly isolated Putin has little to no choice but to go along.

The Church has close connections with secret services. Kirill’s statements about conflicts are identical to the Russian government’s official propaganda on the matter. Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev, a major donor to the Church, has been accused of financing secret operations. Malofeev was even sanctioned by the European Union for his activities, but he is also the head of the St. Basil the Great Foundation, which financed the renovation of the headquarters of the Church’s Department of External Relations. The foundation’s board members include Igor Shchyogolev, one of Putin’s aides.

In terms of its historical origins, domestic policy, and foreign relations, the situation in Russia has some disturbing similarities to Iran. In both nations, an all-powerful religious establishment is promoting authoritarian government, undermining democracy, and supporting or at least turning a blind eye to state-sanctioned terrorism.

One has to wonder why Western media and political leaders have ignored these troubling parallels. The most likely explanation is that the authoritarian religious movement in Russia is Christian, while that in Iran is based on Shia Islam. Journalists and politics in the West are probably too afraid of being branded anti-Christian to speak out against these developments.

Yet sooner or later we will have to deal with this situation because Russia is heavily armed, in possession of nuclear weapons, and increasingly aggressive. Sadly enough, that aggression is being actively encouraged by the nation’s Church. It is time for Christian leaders in other nations and Russian Christians to start condemning the decidedly corrupt behavior of the Russian Orthodox Church and its close relationship with its former enemies, including such a corrupt figure as Vladimir Putin. The Church is definitely leading Russia down the road to disaster.

Since the amended blasphemy law came into force in July 2013, Russian journalists have faced a growth of religious censorship. Insulting religious beliefs of citizens was previously regulated by the Code of Administrative Offences. But after the scandal of the punk-prayer of feminist group Pussy Riot, who were sentenced to two years in jail for a performance in the Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 2012, the Russian parliament adopted amendments that criminalized blasphemy.

Scores of religious experts following the situation in Russia have not been shy in speaking out in opposition to the case, such as Daniel Mark, chairman of the United States Commission on Religious Freedom, who states: “The conclusion by the court—by any court—that the NWT translation is not a Bible is nonsense.” Likewise, Dr. Mathew N. Schmalz, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, declares: “the claim that the NWT is not ‘a Bible’ is absurd.”

Many point to the Center for Sociocultural Expert Studies in Moscow, the group responsible for the “expert study,” as the source of the absurdity. Scholars have roundly denounced the group. For instance, Roman Lunkin, the Head of the Center for Problems of Religion and Society at the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Europe in Moscow, has labeled these experts as “fake,” revealing that “not one of [them] has a degree in religious studies.” Countering the claims of the “expert study,” Professor Gerhard Besier, director of the Sigmund Neumann Institute for the Research on Freedom and Democracy (Germany), succinctly defends the NWT, stating: “The New World Translation has received high-praise worldwide from Bible scholars representing diverse religious communities.”

With the decision to ban the NWT, the Russian Federation has assumed a hostile posture that should concern more than just the Witnesses. According to Willy Fautré, director and co-founder of Belgium-based Human Rights Without Frontiers: “Any translation of any other historical sacred book—the Koran of the Muslims, the Tanakh of the Jews, and the Kangyur of the Buddhists—can now be declared illegal in Russia, and any sacred book of any other religion is now vulnerable to state censorship in Russia.”

Christianity is a baseless religion that was designed by the Roman empire to justify slavery and pacify the citizens. Christianity may be considered a religion, but it was actually developed and used as a system of mind control to produce slaves that believed God decreed their slavery.

At the time, Jewish sects in Palestine were awaiting a warrior Messiah, which became an increasing problem after the Roman Empire failed to deal with the problem with traditional means. As a result, the rulers resorted to psychological warfare which would appear to give the citizens what they wanted, while at the same time making sure they followed their rules. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system.

That’s when the peaceful Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to give onto Caesar and pay their taxes to Rome. Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history.

When Jesus announced that we should cut off body parts, he was telling others to harm themselves. There were entire monastic orders that castrated themselves because Jesus said in Matthew 19:12 that “he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Every year in the United States we read about one or two men who mutilate themselves in order to prove their obedience to Jesus! This only shows that Jesus was immoral.

Chryse Pege, Golden Source, is the most infamous gay mafia of the Greek Orthodox Church, organized by the late archbishop Christodoulos. The corrupt Church of Greece greatly contributes to the moral decline of Greek society. Nevertheless, religion is protected by lèse–majesté! The barbarity and corruption of Greek bishops is beyond imagination, heavily involved in skulduggery, orgies, trial rigging, drug and antiquities smuggling, money washing, robberies, inheritance dirty games, election manipulation, and so it goes. Bishop Ambrosios of Kalavryta, godfather of Chryse Pege, blasted Education Minister Nikos Filis over his decision to replace the current religious studies from the school curriculum with a lesson on comparative world religions. During his speech at Church, Ambrosios pleaded to Jesus that Fili’s arm would rot before he signed the decree! Ambrosios also had a few words for those not fasting by eating meat. He said he hoped the meat would turn to poison and puncture their stomach!

Catholics are upset about the pedophilia of their bishops, but this is nothing comparing it to pedophilia and homosexuality of the Greek gang of the late archbishop Christodoulos. Christodoulos surpassed all corruption of all ayatollahs and bishops on planet Earth for all times! He marched on dead bodies to become the archbishop of Athens, and then tried to transform Greece to a super-corrupt Orthodox theocracy. He also destroyed my father with false accusations. I hate the motherfucking Christodoulos like hell! Greeks used to call him ayatollah Christollah! If there is hell, he is definitely there! Let him rot, wherever he is. Amen!